I like him first-rate--he 's a real clever fellow." "He may be clever enough, but I do not think he is a very good associate for you," replied Mrs.Preston.
"Who ought to know best about that, you or I ?" said Oscar, with a pertness for which he was becoming a little too notorious.

"I see Alf every day, but you don't know hardly anything about him.

At my rate, I 'll risk his hurting me." Oscar's grandmother looked at him with astonishment, as he uttered these words.

He felt the silent rebuke, and turned his head from her.
"Well," added Mrs.Preston, "if Alfred is not a bad boy himself, I do not believe that the kind of people you spend so much of your time with, around the hotel-stable, will do either you or him any good.

The lessons a boy learns among tavern loungers do not generally make him any better, to say the least.